feel free to use this sample letter or write your own
To find your State Representative and Senator, enter your zip code on this webpage: Find My Legislator (malegislature.gov)
(for Arlington residents north of Mass Ave)
Dear Representative Sean Garballey, sean.garballey@mahouse.gov
(for North Cambridge and Arlington residents south of Mass Ave) Dear Representative Dave Rogers,
dave.rogers@mahouse.gov
(for West Somerville residents)
Dear Representative Christine Barber,
Christine.Barber@mahouse.gov
Thank you so much for your work to secure ARPA funding for controlling Combined Sewer Overflows! The Senate has increased the CSO funding from $100 to $175 million and we hope that the House will support that increase.
I would like to see some of the ARPA funding go towards closing the Alewife Brook CSOs. During flood events, that unsafe, sewage-contaminated water floods into Arlington homes, yards, and parks. This affects Arlington’s most diverse and vulnerable neighborhoods. And during major flood events, the Alewife Brook can reverse direction, sending sewage-contaminated floodwaters back into Cambridge, towards Cambridge’s most diverse and vulnerable neighborhood, at Rindge Towers.
It’s important to recognize that Climate Change is upon us now and promises wetter rain seasons, more frequent and severe storms, and sea level rise. We can already see that this is having an impact on CSO discharges in the Alewife Brook. This is why I am writing to you today: we need to prepare for Climate Change now and to mitigate its adverse regional community health problems.
We would also like you to encourage Cambridge, Somerville and MWRA to use this Federal funding to begin the important planning and implementation work to close the Alewife Brook CSOs.
Sincerely,
<name and address>
More information on the Alewife CSOs is available at: savethealewifebrook.org/